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The infamous Westboro Baptist Church, who have for nearly two decades drawn national attention for picketing funerals of fallen American soldiers and events regarding members of the GLBTQ community, plans to be at the University of Maine Sunday afternoon to protest a play about the life of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student who was tortured and murdered in Laramie, Wyo. in 1998.
According to a response on Twitter from Margie Phelps, the daughter of church founder Fred Phelps, seven or eight members of the church are expected to be in Orono Sunday afternoon “barring any changes.”
The church members are scheduled to picket from 12:15 p.m. to the show’s start in Room 100 of the Donald P. Corbett Business Building at 1 p.m. The play showed Friday and Saturday nights.
“The Laramie Project,” a play being produced jointly by Wilde Stein and UMaine GLBTQ Services, was written by Moisés Kaufman. It tells the story of one of America’s most notorious hate crimes, focusing mostly on who Shepard was as a person and on the makeup of the Laramie community. The characters played are real people who lived or worked in the town during that time.
In a Thursday news release, the Topeka, Kan.-based church called Shepard “a disobedient pervert” and announced three protests of showings of the play. UMaine was the first on the list. The others are at a Michigan high school and Washington State University, respectively.
“Matt Shepard has been in Hell now for twelve years, with eternity left to go on his sentence – without appeal, parole, or time off for good behavior. All else about Matt is trivial and irrelevant. Deal with it!” the release said.
University spokesman Joe Carr said he “anticipates no problem” if the protesters show up. The demonstration will be handled by the UMaine Police Department in accordance with school policy on the use of campus buildings.
The policy states that “protests/demonstrations are, for the most part, limited to the exterior of campus buildings. These activities must not impede entrance or egress to University facilities and must not pose a safety problem in the event of fire or other emergency. Additionally, they should not be conducted in a manner which is intimidating or threatening to a diverse audience, or interfere with the conduct of normal University business.”
“[The production] was to make sure that the people who were four years old at the time still realize that this happened,” Gavin Pickering, GLBTQ services coordinator and director of the play, told The Maine Campus Wednesday. “Students around here, they don’t really know about it — it’s not as familiar as it is with the older people. It wasn’t that long ago.”
This story is developing. Check mainecampus.com for updates and full coverage Sunday afternoon.
